Ladies & Gentlemen

Behind-the-scenes glimpses of celebrities and other
notables in UB’s long-running speakers series

Story by Ann Whitcher-Gentzke; illustration by Marci Roth

Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, bounds up
the stage and does a double-take at the life-size buffalo statue behind
him. He grins broadly and the audience laughs with him. It’s a moment
when everyone can relax. Together audience and speaker will
resolve the incongruity of a world figure—a media image for most people
up to this point—who’s now present physically in Alumni Arena
and ready to engage the crowd. Blair, who spoke at UB in 2009 as the
Graduate Student Choice Speaker, is just one of many political leaders,
intellectuals, journalists, comedians, authors or hard-to-define
celebrities who have appeared in UB’s Distinguished Speakers Series
(DSS) since it was launched more than 25 years ago. While the audience
sees accomplished speakers fluently delivering their remarks,
only a handful of university people are treated to up-close encounters
with the public figures who dominate the series.

William J. Regan, MBA ’92 & BA ’80,
heads the Office of Special Events and
has met all DSS speakers since he began
directing the series in 1992. He enjoys
welcoming these diverse personalities, who
range from former presidents and senior
statesmen to irreverent comics and literary
artists of every description. He recalls, for
instance, the warmth of Sidney Poitier, the
Academy Award-winning actor who took
part in the 2000-01 DSS season. Poitier’s
address marked the first time UB merged
the series with the annual Martin Luther
King Jr. Commemoration event, a format
that continues today. Poitier was contemplating
a New York stage performance
based on his own life and career; the UB
appearance was considered a run-through.

“Once he accepted our invitation, he
went about preparing for it in a way that
I’d never seen before,” says Regan. “On a
trip to New York in the middle of winter,
he lay over in Buffalo for a couple of hours
so he could come in, look at our facilities
and get a feel for how we were going to
set it up. For the actual speaking event, he
came in a day early so he could meet with
a film class taught by Jim Pappas [now associate
professor of transnational studies].
On event day he did a full-blown rehearsal
during the afternoon.”

From the silly to the serious

Booked as the Student Choice Speaker in
2006, Conan O’Brien made a big impression
with his gracious, down-to-earth
manner. “Basically, he told me from the
get-go, ‘I’m yours. Whatever you want me
to do, I’ll do it,’” Regan says. “So it wasn’t a
matter of looking at the itinerary, looking
at the contract and saying, ‘Okay, I’m doing
this for five minutes,’ or ‘How many people
are in the reception room?’ He was just so
engaging with everyone.”

O ’Brien’s hilarious performance was
followed by an impromptu Buffalo wings
run that delighted the DSS staff. “When
Conan finished his lecture, he walked up to
Bill Regan and me backstage and told us he
never had real Buffalo wings and wanted
to try them before he left town,” says Jay
Friedman, EdM ’00 & BA ’86, associate
vice president for alumni relations, then
assistant director of special events. “He
then asked us if we wanted to join him.
Fifteen minutes later we were sitting at
Duff’s on Millersport eating chicken wings
and drinking beer with Conan O’Brien. He
then proceeded to call his pilot and tell him
that he would be a little late for takeoff.”

Dennis R. Black, JD ’81, vice president
for university life and services, has
introduced dozens of speakers as part of
the DSS but only one reacted like O’Brien.
“As his introduction was finished, the
rather tall and red-headed Conan came on
to stage and waved to the crowd,” Black
recalls. “But instead of shaking hands with
me, he simply picked me up and twirled me
around. It was a 360 degree circle in the
air, much to the delight of the crowd! That
was the beginning of a long and fun night
as Conan O’Brien’s straight man at UB.”

Bill Regan, joined by Jay Friedman at his right, were among the campus officials who greeted His Holiness,
the 14th Dalai Lama upon his arrival in Buffalo in September 2006.

Another lively speaker, former California
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, arrived
early for his 2011 DSS address. So he
suggested a trip to Starbucks to a surprised
group of UB staffers. “We were a little caravan
with University Police and a couple
people he traveled with,” Regan says. “We
walked into the Starbucks on Main Street
in Williamsville, and everyone’s looking at
this guy and seeming to say, ‘Is that Arnold
Schwarzenegger?’ Because when you see
people out of context you really question
your own judgment and perceptions.”

Most speakers wear business attire or
at least are dressed for a casual evening
out. One speaker, however, defied these
conventions and opted for a super-relaxed
look when travel plans went awry. “I
remember Bill Cosby arriving on campus
five minutes before his November 2003
lecture was supposed to start,” says Friedman.
“He drove to Buffalo from New York
City when his flight was cancelled because
of a Nor’easter winter storm. He arrived
in sweatpants, a sweatshirt, and flip-flops
... and walked right up on to the stage to
deliver his lecture dressed ‘as is.’”

Others have mesmerized the audience
with their serious themes or elevated lanlanguage.
“One of the more difficult introductions
for me to draft was when historian
and filmmaker Ken Burns joined us at UB
in 2002,” says Black. “With his mastery
of language, I felt appropriately anxious
about saying the right things in the right
way to introduce him to the sold-out
Center for the Arts crowd. But he was very
warm both before and after the lecture.”

Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor
and Nobel Peace Prize winner, is another
speaker remembered for his eloquence. “It
was powerful to have him on stage,” says
Regan of Wiesel’s 1998 visit. “The Mainstage
Theatre was sold out and you could
hear a pin drop when he was speaking.
That was profound, to have him here as
that beam of life, of hope, of humanity.”

How it all comes together

The speakers series is funded through a
combination of ticket sales, and university
and sponsor support. And although Regan
won’t divulge specific speaking fees, he
does describe a deliberate
process that leads to
speakers who are chosen
for their perceived audience
appeal, with some
prognostication to determine
the likelihood they’ll
be “hot” when lecture day
arrives. “Obviously, we
have a track record with
what we’re paying out
and what we can expect
to generate in terms of
sponsorship and ticket
revenues,” Regan says.
“You certainly like to look at each program
first and foremost on a stand-alone basis.
But you also need to consider how each
program contributes to the overall lineup in
terms of creating widespread interest.”

Still, speakers are not recruited for
celebrity alone but rather are identified in
a carefully calibrated process that draws
on feedback from throughout the campus
and from regular audience polling. “DSS
has developed over the decades in several
positive ways,” Black says. “We’ve added
Student Choice Speakers to the line-up and
developed a link to ‘UB Reads,’ meaning we
bring an author to campus each year at the
end of our community reading program.
We’ve also been able to have several DSS
speakers a year provide an educational experience
and campus exposure to area high
school students and their teachers through a
special sponsorship program.”

Probably the most logistically challenging
DSS address was the 2006 visit by His
Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama that culminated
in a lecture before 30,000 people
in UB Stadium. “Talk about protocols,”
says Regan. “That was the protocol lesson
extraordinaire when it comes to the dos
and don’ts of coordinating security issues,
and the coordination of simple receiving
line etiquette, for instance. That was just a
consummate university program where everybody
had to be involved in some capacity
to make it work the way it did.”

The Dalai Lama’s visit entailed elaborate
security measures, as was the case when
former U.S. presidents Jimmy Carter and
George H.W. Bush delivered DSS addresses.
“Anytime a world figure comes to UB, the
security involves several agencies in addition
to state and campus law enforcement,”
Regan explains, “for instance, the U.S. State
Department when the Dalai Lama visited, and
Scotland Yard when Tony Blair was here.”

Airport arrivals

Regan makes it his business to pick up and
return speakers at Buffalo Niagara International
Airport. Most of the pick-ups proceed
routinely, but sometimes he needs to keep
his eyes peeled while waiting under the
arrivals sign. Take Stephen Colbert, for instance.
“He’s got such a distinctive visage,”
says Regan of the iconoclastic comic who
appeared at UB in 2008. “He came in, ball
cap scrunched down and carrying a knapsack.
Television tends to make people look
heavier or bigger than they are. And Colbert,
in person, is not a real big guy. He almost
walked by me before I recognized him.”

The fact that Buffalo isn’t a hub city for
major airlines can discourage speakers or
their agents from choosing UB. Proximity
to Niagara Falls, however, has helped
motivate some celebrities to speak at UB
or even to linger in the area. “When writer
Amy Tan was here in 2003, she recognized
an opportunity to see Niagara Falls,” Regan
says. “So that clearly worked in our favor to
bring her here. As part of her visit, Marcus
Bursik, professor of geology, took her on a
wonderful geological tour of Niagara Falls.”
Seven-time Tour de France winner Lance
Armstrong also saw Niagara Falls when he
was here in April 2012, his first ever visit to
the world-famous attraction.

Asked if speakers ever have unusual requests,
Regan says most “are pretty tame,”
such as no fish on the menu or preferred
audiovisual equipment. “Bill Maher had to
have a juicer in his hotel room,” Regan recalls
with a smile, “and all sorts of organic
fruits and vegetables that he could juice.”

Sometimes a speaker will interact with
DSS staff in memorable ways. “I was escorting
Bill Bradley, the former U.S. senator,
from the green room to the stage just
before his lecture in 2003,” says Friedman.
“And he asked me if I was wearing a watch.
I said yes, and he asked me if he could borrow
it. He told me he never wore a watch
but wanted to put one on the podium so he
could keep track of the time. I took off the
watch and gave it to him, and never gave it
a second thought. The next morning I got a
call from his hotel. He remembered that he
had my watch and left it for me at the front
desk before he flew back to New York.”

What’s next

While broadcasting rights are prohibited
by the agencies representing speakers,
Regan would like to someday beam closed-circuit
DSS lectures to alumni association
chapters. Friedman endorses this notion.
“I’d love to one day offer this opportunity
to alums, not only around the country but
also around the world,” he says.

Technologies will vary and speakers will
come and go, but don’t expect the essential
purpose of the Distinguished Speakers
Series to change much.

“The series serves a variety of mission
goals for UB,” says Black. “It brings the
community to campus. It provokes thought
and discussion. And it brings people and
issues to life for our students, making them
more real, more pressing and more understandable.”

Presenting sponsor for the DSS is the
Don Davis Auto World Lectureship Fund;
the Undergraduate Student Association is
the exclusive series sponsor.

A photo booth complete with cutouts of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Student Choice Speaker in 2011, was set up for audience members to remember the occasion.